Its a little thing, but i like how you literally don't need to click on any buttons to save / create a new one / etc. I also like how you can create your own customized path to help you remember the link... just type in a new path and start editing, and you now can share that custom URI.<p>I think its important to create as little friction to usage as possible, and you've done that.
The first thing that I loved about this, that drives me crazy on other real-time online editors, is that pressing "tab" actually creates a tabbed space, and doesn't change the active textarea. Nice job!<p>Any plan on open sourcing the code to do the real-time editing? I would love to use this real-time editing concept in a project I'm working on.
Looks like you've made sure any recursion only goes one deep? (Awesome)<p><a href="http://scratchpad.io/5mqq98D51P" rel="nofollow">http://scratchpad.io/5mqq98D51P</a><p>Every change forces a reload on the iframe. I wonder if there's a way to prevent that.<p><pre><code> <html>
<body>
<h1>Heading</h1>
<iframe width="640" height="480"
src="http://scratchpad.io/5mqq98D51P">
</iframe>
</body>
</html></code></pre>
Thats awesome. Also looking at the source, I discovered it's using keymaster.js and firebase.js, which are new to me. And the implementation of scratchpad.io is very simple and elegant. The design is beautiful, and the code (in scratchpad.js) is so simple that it makes for a good tutorial on using firebase and ace.js.<p>In fact, if anyone else is interested in forking the code and experimenting with it, feel free to fork my plunk and go to town:<p><a href="http://plnkr.co/edit/49fOC5Mq3bcBysKfdPor?p=preview" rel="nofollow">http://plnkr.co/edit/49fOC5Mq3bcBysKfdPor?p=preview</a><p>(Hope you appreciate the irony of forking scratchpad.io via Plunker. Also, it'd be wicked if Plunker could automatically "fork" html webpages, pull in all the required resources and/or updating path references).
For a first time coder, being able to see your page change live is very helpful in getting to learn HTML and CSS. This is an amazing complement to the book you are writing - nice work Nathan!
Ok, this editor rocks. Nice use of Ace.js.<p>One of my biggest frustrations with jsfiddle is the crappy coding area (not to mention the default selection of Mootools among others).
This is really great, especially as a compliment to the learning tools coming to market.<p>For front-end designers looking for a similar effect within your own text editor and browser window, I can not live without the CodeKit app now. It does a similar real-time effect each time the template files are saved. Also supports less, js debugging/minification, and other production processes.<p><a href="http://incident57.com/codekit/" rel="nofollow">http://incident57.com/codekit/</a>
Slightly off topic: You use "enough to be dangerous" with a positive meaning, as in enough to make a real difference in the world, while Alexander Pope quote you use is probably negative: "A little learning is a dangerous thing." as in, someone who knows little can do more harm than good.
I don't wanna down a nice looking project, very well done on the interface but, another one? There are already like 7+ of these I don't really see the need to produce another one especially one that is HTML+CSS only when many of the others feature JavaScript and more.<p>What features do you provide that say, <a href="http://jsfiddle.net/" rel="nofollow">http://jsfiddle.net/</a>, <a href="http://cssdesk.com/" rel="nofollow">http://cssdesk.com/</a>, <a href="http://dabblet.com/" rel="nofollow">http://dabblet.com/</a>, <a href="http://rendera.heroku.com/" rel="nofollow">http://rendera.heroku.com/</a>, doesn't? (Just the first 4 items that came up in a Google search, the list could go on...)
Have the realtime plus:
<a href="http://jsfiddle.net/" rel="nofollow">http://jsfiddle.net/</a>
And you will rock!<p>Right now, you are just awesome ;).
Great work. (love things that are "clean")<p><pre><code> Press ⌘ + i to toggle fullscreen view
</code></pre>
I don't have this key and suspect a lot of others don't either. ;)
This is awesome! I constantly look for live editors but haven't found a good one for front-end. I tried Adobe Brackets, Firebug (for in-window editing) but all had their complexities and constraints. Scrathpad.io is by far the most intuitive and best one for HTML and CSS out there!
Not to detract from what is a pretty cool project, and I hope OP had fun making it, but: <a href="http://codepen.io" rel="nofollow">http://codepen.io</a> is this and quite a bit more. It supports HTML+JS+CSS as well as e.g. Jade, SASS and CoffeeScript- if that's what floats your boat- and some nice social features, like featured pens and saving to Gists.<p>Other commenters have pointed out a myriad of similar such services. I'm surprised Codepen hasn't come up already.<p>@brycecolquitt, you are obviously very talented, and I look forward to whatever you come up with in the future. I just hope it's not in a space as hotly contested as this.
Very nice. Love the responsiveness and good use of (OS-aware?) keyboard shortcuts.<p>Bug: (Chrome Version 23.0.1271.97 on OSX)<p>Expand the side panel and select a document from the RECENT list. The editor area doesn't update completely; the text loads, but there are only line numbers up to the length of the previously viewed document and it's impossible to move the cursor below the last line number (<a href="http://i.imgur.com/h9nMh.png" rel="nofollow">http://i.imgur.com/h9nMh.png</a>).<p>EDIT: Correction, the line numbering is correct, the problem is with the line-height in the editor.
Absolutely amazing.
A couple things that bother me, and they might just be from Ace.js:<p>When typing text into a <p> or an <h1> for example, if I type "I'm", I get the smart double quote feature, and end up typing:<p>I'm going to the zoo'<p>Likewise, if I go back into the stream of some text in a <p>, and want to wrap it in a span, if I click at the start of it and type <span id="foo">, I get another span on the other side of my cursor, pushing the existing text over.<p>Otherwise, utterly fantastic tool. Trying to use it for real work already :)
Pretty nice, I'll probably be using this for debugging and examples.<p>Bug:<p>Open the about panel by clicking the icon in top left (three horizontal bars). Close the panel by clicking the same icon.<p>Maximize the preview window by clicking the arrow in the top right of the edit panel. Click the arrow to view the code panel again.<p>The about panel pops out as well and the arrow button covers the show/hide about (three horizontal bars) button. Expected behavior: it should return to the view that I had before maximizing.
I would love to be able to work in realtime (a la Etherpad) with someone else - would take pairing to a whole new level. Also, style management could quickly get messy - I know you are trying to keep the UI as simple as possible, but I would love to be able to quickly toggle between HTML and CSS on different tabs (instead of scrolling).
Nicely done on Scratchpad. The interface seems to be the right combination of simple and intuitive. It would be great to see the source code as many others have said.<p>I'm particularly curious as to how you've done the collaborative bit given that you don't have explicit control over the order of operations of edits.
Cool! I'm going to use it for debugging.<p>Quick thing: I have a page quickramen.com/test/test that has links that navigate around the page. If you click those now, it loads the code again in another mini-window and doesn't go anywhere.<p>JUST a bug to be aware of if you're keeping a log!
I'm building a similar one (it also allows you to inspect html elements like using Firebug or Webkit's Dev tools), and it's a native Windows app (and really fast one!) <a href="http://liveditor.com" rel="nofollow">http://liveditor.com</a>
How is this different from codemirror? Codemirror's preview utility easily handles this (and much more versatile in other ways):<p><pre><code> http://codemirror.net/
http://codemirror.net/demo/preview.html</code></pre>
Nice work and all, but what's wrong with a local .html file your favorite text editor, and a browser? I've been doing that for <i>years</i> to play around with html, css, and js.
I use Livejs for the same effect, but this is much smoother obviously since it can trigger on key press rather than polling the resource constantly from the web page.
Seems very slow in firefox, can't keep up with my typing and missed the characters inbetween.<p>Not sure if it's supposed to just say 'Loading...' at the top the whole time either..